


One Day

by stupidityisdangerous (orphan_account)



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Domestic Fluff, Drabble, Eleven | Jane Hopper/Mike Wheeler Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Mike Wheeler Loves Eleven | Jane Hopper, Tumblr Ask Box Fic, Young Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 12:10:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15218888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/stupidityisdangerous
Summary: El is great with children, and it's something Mike notices from the very first time she meets his little sister Holly.





	One Day

**Author's Note:**

> For [Eden](http://strangerthanyou011.tumblr.com/), who wanted to know how El is with children.
> 
> Eden, I want you to know that just because I don't see us as compatible to be close friends, it doesn't mean I don't like you, and it certainly doesn't mean that I hold a grudge against you for being annoying. It was not your intention, and I recognize that it was petty for me to become upset with you. I hope you accept my apology, and that you like this over the top drabble I wrote after the Eleven names ask you sent me a month or so ago. 
> 
> Follow me on [Tumblr](http://shady-sink.tumblr.com/) or read this story on [FanFiction.net](https://www.fanfiction.net/u/6326521/) if that is your preferred site.

 

El has always had a way with children, and it’s something Mike notices from the very first time she meets Holly. She and Mike are in their freshman year of high school and have been officially dating for about three months when Karen insists that Mike bring her home for dinner to meet the family.

Holly is five and just starting kindergarten, and immediately she is drawn to Mike’s girlfriend. Mike has a lot of friends, and she knows all of them, but only two of them are girls, and Max isn’t nearly as friendly towards Holly as El is. 

They sit beside each other at the dinner table, and Holly, usually quiet and reserved but quick-tempered much like her older siblings, is talkative and bubbly, telling El all about her class and her friends and her favorite cartoons and how El looks just like a princess in her dress.

El is an attentive listener, paying attention to and responding to everything Holly tells her, taking her seriously and agreeing with her opinions as if the ten year age difference between them does not even exist.

After dinner, Holly invites El to a tea party in her bedroom, and El agrees readily, excitedly dragging Mike upstairs and into the pink and white lace of Holly’s bedroom, sitting at the tiny table in the corner surrounded by stuffed animals and drinking imaginary tea from tiny plastic tea cups with a genuine smile on her face, giggling with Holly when Mike—lankier and lankier by the day as he rapidly nears six feet—can barely fit his long thin legs under the table.

Mike is a little jealous, he will admit to her later in private once they’re making out behind the closed door of his own bedroom, but he loves Holly, and although he hasn’t admitted it yet he loves El too, so he’s glad they get along like Holly is El’s sister too.

A few years later, when Nancy is married and brings home her daughter Shannon for the first time, El, now eighteen at the time and newly graduated from high school, proves to be just as good with babies. She holds Shannon naturally in her arms, smiling giddily when the infant grabs at her now bleached blonde shoulder-length curls, rocking her lovingly while her exhausted parents sleep soundly upstairs in Nancy’s childhood bedroom.

Mike is terrified to hold Shannon, scared he will clutch her wrong in his long bony arms or that she won’t like being babysat by her uncle as she is by her almost aunt. El sits with him on the Wheelers’ couch, cuddled close to him and wearing one of his old t-shirts, and passes Shannon carefully, making sure she is steady and comfortable in his arms.

Shannon wails almost immediately, and Mike is devastated, but El just kisses him affectionately on the cheek, reassuring him that he’ll get the hang of it. He hopes she’s right, because he’s been saving money for a ring since graduation, and he hopes that one day she’ll wear it while rocking children of their own.  
  



End file.
